


Ignorance is Bliss

by Raphale



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Benvolio is a Good Friend, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, M/M, No one is a one-dimensional charater, POV Outsider, Rosaline is a Good Friend, Secret Relationship, The people of Verona only see what they want to see, Tybalt and Mercutio love each other, Valentine Knows Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29312157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphale/pseuds/Raphale
Summary: There was more than one tragedy in Verona, yet very few are those who know the hidden story. This is the story of Verona's second tragedy, the story of how Tybalt and Mercutio were more than meet the eyes. This is the story of how much Mercutio and Tybalt loved each other, and the friends that kept their secret.
Relationships: Benvolio Montague & Tybalt, Mercutio & Benvolio Montague, Mercutio/Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet), Rosaline & Mercutio, Rosaline & Tybalt (Romeo and Juliet), Verona & Mercutio, Verona & Tybalt
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Astray. My eternal gratitude to her.
> 
> Title is from Thomas Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" :  
>  _To each his suff'rings: all are men,  
>  Condemn'd alike to groan,  
> The tender for another's pain;  
> Th' unfeeling for his own.  
> Yet ah! why should they know their fate?  
> Since sorrow never comes too late,  
> And happiness too swiftly flies.  
> Thought would destroy their paradise.  
> No more; where ignorance is bliss,  
> 'Tis folly to be wise._

They say he was larger than life.

They say he loved and hated with all his heart and soul.

They say he gave in to all his desires, and did not care that he was burning himself away.

They remember his loud laughs, his blinding smiles, his sharp wits, his cunning swordplay, his abandon in drunken brawls. They think he was never sad or lonely, ever cheerful, foolish, the prince of an adoring court.

They did not know.

How could they?

Romeo could have told them that sometimes he was afraid, on the edge of a panic attack, losing himself in dark thoughts. But Romeo is dead. Benvolio could have told them all about the nights he slipped into his friend's bedroom because he did not want to - could not - sleep alone, tormented by the monsters lurking in the deepest recesses of his mind. But Benvolio left. He went to Florence to try and forget his grief and his anger. Sweet, pious Rosaline could have told them all about their long conversations on faith and sin, redemption and love. But Rosaline took her secrets, her passion and her cleverness to Rome, where she studies Humanities despite everything the bigots have to say about an educated woman. Valentine knows all about the darkness in his brother's heart. But Valentine never talks about his brother. Valentine seldom talks about anything else than his duties these days. The Prince despairs to have a conversation about something else than the affairs of the city with him. But could anyone blame him, for duties were all that remained in the lifeless husk of Verona, now that its youth had bled out or fled?

There is someone else who could have told them that behind the smiles and the laughter, the puns and the innuendos, laid a deeply ingrained melancholy, a fear and a self-hatred the kind of which they could not even begin to fathom. Yet, had he tried to tell them, were he not dead and buried under the earth, they would not have believed him anyway. After all, the hatred they bore each other was as famed as it was boundless. Or so they think, and will keep on thinking against all evidence of the contrary. Because the thought of Tybalt loving Mercutio with all his heart, and Mercutio loving Tybalt above anything else, is so alien, so unlike anything the good people of Verona has ever known, that it could never be fully comprehended - even more so in light of the events that shook the city and painted its streets red.

To the people of Verona, Tybalt was a spectral shadow. He was a sword drawn out in the streets, a sneer so condescending and cold his opponents would shiver and tremble, and words drenched in acid that cut to the bone. Where Mercutio was day, Tybalt was night. Where Mercutio was light and heat, Tybalt was darkness and cold. All they could see of him was his shadow in every fight, his hatred of the Montagues and his anger at the world at large.

They never saw that every time he fought, nobody was hurt. Every time he drove the Montagues away, he also led the enraged Capulets back to safe streets. They did not understand that he was a keeper of peace and balance, that his violence kept everyone else under control.

They did not understand that he loved peace and tranquillity. No one knew of his love for poetry, or his extensive knowledge of literature and history. No one remembered the little boy who arrived in Verona after the death of his parents, the little boy with his books on the greatest strategists of history. They did not remember his sadness and his fear. No one saw the cruelty with which Lord Capulet greeted him in his house, or how Lady Capulet immediately began to turn him into her weapon of vengeance. No one saw how the little orphan boy was forced out of his childhood, his books thrown away and replaced by a sword and lessons on how to maim and kill.

Sometimes, Juliet could see below the surface, she could reach out to the real Tybalt. She knew how to make him laugh, and she knew which books to ask and leave for him. She never said a word, and the people of Verona thought her an innocent, fragile flower, but she knew all about violence and cruelty, and when she grew up, she helped shield her cousin from the worst of it, by having her parents focus more and more on her. Sometimes Rosaline took her place, and Tybalt and she discussed History and literature at length, though always behind closed doors and shut windows. Those were their secrets, and nobody could ever learn of them. All the city could ever know was the fighter, the dark shadow stalking its streets.

No one knew Mercutio better than Tybalt knew him, no one understood Tybalt better than Mercutio understood him. In the eye of the people, the association of the red-haired buffoon who would spend all his time in taverns always surrounded by the Montagues, with the infamous Prince of Cats, shunned heir of the proud Capulet family, the fighter blinded by anger and hatred, was completely unfathomable. If the people of Verona knew just how much they relied on each other, how they would run to the other after a bad day, how they could fight and insult each other during the day and murmur promises and endearments into each other's skin at night, then they would grieve a little less for Juliet and her Romeo and a little more for Tybalt and Mercutio.

Only Benvolio and Rosaline have ever discovered the true nature of their relationship. Benvolio and Rosaline are kind, decent, discreet people - a rare breed indeed in Verona - and when it comes to their friends and family, they will take their secrets to their graves.


	2. Chapter 2

Benvolio was a Montague through and through, loyal to his House, his cousin, and fascinated by Mercutio’s fire; he was no friend of the Capulets. Yet he was also dedicated to keep the streets as peaceful as could be, in order to avoid unnecessary problems like death or the Prince’s wrath. In this, he was very much like Tybalt. The Capulet, though a skilled fighter, was not fond of street fights. Many times, the two men could be found trying to break fights in public spaces, to appease tensions as best as they could. There were other times too, when the animosity was too strong, the people too furious, the insults and catcalls flowing too freely, times where they had to draw out their swords and join the scuffle. Times where they found themselves facing each other. Benvolio was no match for Tybalt, and yet he never suffered a wound at his hands. 

  
One evening, Benvolio, alone, was walking back to the Montague’s villa, when he stumbled across a highly unfair fight. An unarmed cloaked figure was defending his life against five young Montagues’ men. The alley they were in was not a particularly isolated one, and still no one had come to help the lone man. A sword was discarded on the pavements, too far away for the man to reach it, a dagger on the other side, half hidden in a puddle of mud. The sun was setting and the lanterns at the windows had yet to be kindled. A blazing anger seized Benvolio at the sight of such an unfair fight. The attackers being relatives shamed him even more. Without thinking, he joined the brawl.

“Five against one!” he bellowed. “You should be ashamed of yourselves! Away with you!”

At last they managed to get rid of the enraged Montagues and flee. They soon found themselves in a more secluded part of the alley, having shaken off their pursuers, and Benvolio finally looked at the man he had helped saving. To his surprise, the scowl of Tybalt Capulet welcomed his enquiring gaze. His astonishment rose to new levels when instead of insulting him and telling him that he had not needed help, Tybalt actually bowed his head.

“I thank you. I could not have saved my own life alone and disarmed.”

“I … you … What?” Benvolio stuttered.

A subtle smile replaced the sneer. 

“I am sorry if this action costs you anything in regards to your relation with your kin. I should hope you do not find yourself in trouble for saving the life of your family’s greatest enemy.”

With these words he left, graceful and light on his feet as always, leaving behind a spluttering, bewildered Benvolio.

A few days after this event, which Benvolio was still not sure really happened, the young man came to fetch Mercutio in his chambers in the middle of the afternoon. Having made his way into the Palace by his usual, secret means - the hidden door in the West garden that only the Prince’s nephews and a few servants ever used -, he entered Mercutio’s room without knocking, preoccupied by Lady Capulet’s latest orders and Romeo’s new disappearance. He was stopped in his tracks, mouth hanging open and blinking in stupor, at the sight that welcomed him. On the four-poster bed, Mercutio, half naked, was peacefully sleeping, laying on top of… Was that Tybalt? Surely Benvolio was seeing things, an impression reinforced by the fact that this Tybalt was as relaxed and comfortable as Mercutio was. But it was Tybalt indeed. Their limbs were entangled together in the sheets and they were looking as young as they really were, the city’s problems no longer troubling their brows, allowing youth to seep back into their features. Benvolio slowly walked out in silence, mind reeling and trying to make sense of what he had just seen. Men laying with men or women with women was not unheard of, or even frowned upon, except by the most zealous of believers. What Benvolio could not make sense of was the obvious love he had just seen in that room, when Tybalt and Mercutio on the streets were always at each other’s throats.    
  


In the days that followed, he observed their interactions carefully, until he wrapped his head around the truth: their relationship was secret but real, and it was not his place to judge or condemn it, nor to tell them how they should live their lives. He was glad to have come to that decision when Mercutio came to him one night and led him to an inn on the outskirts of the city, so far out of the way that Benvolio had never heard of it. There, Tybalt was waiting with a few drinks. 

“I noticed that you’ve been watching us for some times now, my pretty little friend”, Mercutio said softly, his eyes twinkling, his demeanor so unlike that of the flamboyant man Benvolio was accustomed to see. “I believe you have discovered our secret?” 

“I … Yes. I have, I did. But I would never...”

“Peace, Ben. I know you would not,” Mercutio interrupted with a laugh. “I did not take you here to threaten you or kill you and abandon you in a ditch.”

“Oh. That is … nice. Thank you?” Benvolio tried.

Mercutio’s smile seemed to widen.

“Don’t worry, you are in no danger from me or the Prince of Cats here.”

That statement earned him a groan of annoyance from the man in question, which Mercutio ignored.

“In fact, you are here tonight because you are one of my closest friends, and I wanted you to meet Tybalt, the real Tybalt, not the prissy, grouchy cat roaming our streets.”

“Mercutio”, Tybalt grumbled.

“There, there, love, don’t be mean, now, we want you on your best behaviour, don’t we.”

The man rolled his eyes, but could not hide a slight smile. He was holding Mercutio’s hand under the table, Benvolio noticed, while his other hand kept his pint of beer close by. In spite of his outwardly relaxed demeanour, his eyes were darting all around the place, as if checking over and over again that no dangers were coming his way.

“Relax”, Mercutio commanded, laying back in his seat, pulling his hand out of Tybalt’s grasp to play with his lover’s hair. “We’re fine. Now stop this and be nice to Benvolio. Poor lad is as afraid of you as you are of him.”

This last statement finally elicited an indignant squawk from Tybalt and a protest from Benvolio. From there on, the conversation flowed, as much as the drinks, and Benvolio finally learnt that Tybalt’s tongue was as sharp and his remarks as witty as Mercutio’s, though not in the same ways. He saw Mercutio being playfully affectionate and romantic, and he saw Tybalt answering in kind, threading his fingers in the red curls, curling his hand on a hip, kissing knuckles. 

It was one of the best nights of his life, and he remembered it with fondness and a bittersweet pinch in his heart four months later, when their bodies were laid out in front of the Palace.

**************************************

Rosaline always had been one of the neutral parties in Verona, although she was Juliet and Tybalt’s cousin, the daughter of Lord Capulet’s younger sister. She had always been quiet, and people only ever saw her devotion and pious demeanour. She’d drape herself in her veils and shawls, head bowed and lips moving in prayer, and she’d let her eyes roam over the city, taking in the misery of the lower orders, the contempt of the nobility, the indifference of the clergy, the jealousies and the petty quarrels of noblemen and commoners alike. She’d kneel down and whisper her rosary, and listen to the gossip of the old aristocrats, the affairs of the domestics, the business of the courts, the disputes of the clergy. 

She knew about Friar Lawrence’s arguments with the rest of the abbey regarding the interpretation of this verse and that parable, she understood all of the Prince’s tax on the peasants though she did not necessarily share his views. She’d quietly listen in on her uncle and his court loudly discussing history books and battle strategies - and she’d laugh at them behind her poetry book, these old men who had never been to war. 

She was quiet and discreet and hid her intelligence and her resourcefulness, her curiosity and her strategic mind, and because of that, they all left her alone. They’d bow their head when she passed them by on in the streets, they’d thank her for her kindness and generosity, remark upon her elegance and her beauty, and forget that she hadn’t been seen since the last mass, or that she didn’t have a husband yet. And she would use their wilful blindness to amass even more knowledge, and with knowledge, more independence.

The garden at the back of the Capulet’s villa, being seldom used by the family who much preferred the front patio where they could parade for all the city to see, was her favourite place to go and hide from the world. 

On one spring’s evening, while she’d been enjoying a book of philosophy in ancient Greek that a friend, a lady scholar of Constantinople, had sent her, she unwittingly witnessed a lover’s quarrel and subsequent reconciliation. She had been reading, mesmerized by the thoughts of ancient philosophers, when her cousin had come crashing through the vegetation. Since Tybalt being agitated and seeking solitude was a regular occurence, she didn’t pay attention at first. But when an equally annoyed Mercutio followed him, she immediately forgot about Aristotle. They hadn’t seen her, hidden as she was in the shadows of the wild rose bushes, left unattended for years, as focused on each other as they were. This part of the garden being wildly ignored by all, it was clear that they had been looking for a place away from prying eyes and poisoned tongues.

“I do not need you to fight my battle in my place!” Tybalt hissed, facing Mercutio, his face twisted in anger and his hands balled up in fists.

“They don’t respect you!” the redhead answered, just as furious.

There was something else too in his expression, an emotion Rosaline had only seen in his eyes when he would seek her to talk of redemption and salvation. It was the hopeless resignation, born from anger at the harshness of the world, an anger that festered under a carefully wrought facade of a mad mirth and outrageous puns.

His temper abating as quickly as it had risen, Mercutio continued quietly :

“They don’t see you. And when they do, they mistreat you. How can you let them talk to you like that, as if you weren’t their nephew and their only male heir?”

“Juliet is the heir,” Tybalt interrupted, “I’m just the orphan, the son of the dead brother, a reminder of what this stupid war took from them.”

“No, you’re not!” Mercutio cried, grabbing his doublet. “No, you’re not just something”, he went on with passion and fire, eyes ablaze. “You’re so much more than what they want you to be! Your strength and resilience are unparalleled! You are hope against all odds, a shield for those in need, the brightest light in all this wretched city, my only solace, my other half. Mine, you hear? Mine! And if they can’t see you, if they can’t respect you, I’ll make them!”

He looked as if he wanted to say more, but Tybalt suddenly pulled him into his arms and silenced him with a fierce kiss. Rosaline closed her eyes, allowing them their privacy, tears sliding down her cheeks. She was not a romantic at heart, not like Juliet and her steadfast belief in true love, or silly Romeo and his forlorn sighs. Yet Mercutio’s impassioned tirade had stirred something inside her. The priests in their endless sermons insisted that love between two men or two women was unnatural and the mark of the devil, but she could not bring herself to believe a word of their preaching when she could witness firsthand the purity and the truth of the love between her cousin and the Prince’s nephew. 

“I do not need them to see me when I have you”, Tybalt said hoarsely.

Rosaline opened her eyes again to see Tybalt holding Mercutio’s face in his hands as if he was holding the most precious work of art.

“Yours is the only light I need to guide me through the pain and the endless darkness.”

“Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me”, Mercutio begged with ragged breaths. 

“Never”, Tybalt swore as he dragged them both deeper in the garden.

She watched them leave, tears blurring her vision, holding her books against her heart. Suddenly her chest was tight with a feeling of dread she could not explain.


	3. Chapter 3

They were lying on the plaza in front of the Prince’s palace not three months later. Dead. Their love, gone with them.

Juliet and Romeo followed them in death just a few days later, in the very tomb where Tybalt should not be resting, away from his love. Children, innocents, they had been, who thought that the world was kind to those in love.

They were all gone now, leaving their secrets for Benvolio and Rosaline alone to carry. Rosaline and Benvolio whose grief left them with no solace.

They were gone, leaving the good people of Verona to speculate, exaggerate and romanticize the stories, never realizing that another tragedy had been playing underneath the star-crossed love of the feuding families’ heirs.

No, the people of Verona, from the poorest to the richest, from the lowly servants to the high nobility, could never understand the passion that drove these sworn enemies together. Their shared swordsmanship led to their first real connection in the streets. Mercutio’s love of puns met Tybalt’s love of poetry, and their mastery of wordplay threw a second bridge between them. Their melancholia drew them together, the searing pain of having to carve out parts of their very being to fit roles made for someone else, and the crushing weight of their names were all that was left for them to learn about each other for their souls to be irrevocably entwined. 

How could they understand that Tybalt fell hard and fast for the only worthy opponent he had ever met, be it in sword’s fights, battle of wit or in bed? How could they fathom that Mercutio only felt complete and alive when he was with his Prince of Cats? 

No one in Verona could ever imagine how gentle and tender the first time they made love was, in complete contrast with their brash and violent public personas, or the fire in their veins each time they kissed. No one could understand the words of love and desire beneath the insults and innuendos thrown at each other whenever Capulets and Montagues would fight. No one noticed that when Tybalt realized he had dealt a mortal blow to Mercutio, his own heart stopped in his chest, shattered. No one - except Benvolio - comprehended that Tybalt let Romeo kill him, because Tybalt without Mercutio was but an empty shell, cold and already dead.

Mercutio laughed and drank, because if he didn’t, the darkness that consumed him would have spread to the city itself, destroying it. He played the fool, flirted with everyone and wielded words like daggers to keep the anguished screams inside, to protect the people, his people, from his unending anger. He was a protector, but nobody saw it. Mercutio acted uncaring, dashing and cunning, because he cared too much and too deeply and could not see another way to help without losing himself. He was scared of himself, of his mercurial temper, quick to anger and quicker to despair, of his dark moods and his bouts of violence. He was Mercutio, the fool, the jester, but he was also Cutio, who could soothe Tybalt’s rage, help him through a fit, make Rosaline laugh and Benvolio forget his responsibilities for a while. 

He knew the ins and outs of the city, knew its people and how to best help them, and whispered in the ear of his uncle the Prince, disguising his sound advice as jokes and passing comments, because even when he hated them, they were still his people, still deserving of a good life. The Prince had given his nephews the best education royalty could get, and in appearance, only subdued, calm Valentine, who never said a word above another, seemed to retain anything from the intense lessons of diplomacy, strategy, politics and ethics. In appearance, only. Mercutio knew how to wound his way around the court, lavishing the aristocrats with honeyed words and jests, playing the air-headed idiot all the while collecting information and implanting ideas in the minds of those who made the laws of the city. Valentine saw. Valentine knew. Valentine used the knowledge his brother would later tell him. Val, quiet, colourless Val with his grey hair and grey eyes and pale skin, in contrast with the fire of his brother’s hair, the green of his eyes and his sun-kissed skin ; he knew how much Mercutio craved love, craved peace, and how Tybalt gave him both and so much more.

Tybalt and his black eyes that bore deep into the soul of anyone who dared to cross him, Tybalt and his strange fits that could leave him shaking on the ground, Tybalt knew what it was to be unwanted, rejected. Not the heir, not even the first born of the Capulet bloodline - this honour befalling to Rosaline - but still high enough in the family line to be treated with the respect due to his position by those lower than him. Who cared if his uncle treated him like a guard dog? Who cared if his aunt only saw him as an extension of her thirst for vengeance and a channel for her hatred of all Montagues? After all, wasn’t he lucky Lord and Lady Capulet took him in after his father and mother died, these traitors to their blood, who ran away and tried to make peace with their enemies? By all means, he should have been carded away to a monastery or a casern. Only the generosity of his uncle and aunt provided for him. If that meant accepting the blows and the insults, the sneers and the rumors, then so be it. The only thing that mattered to him for a long while was protecting his cousins, and especially sweet, innocent Juliet. He kept the grief and the humiliations tucked away, turned the anger and the sadness into coldness and mastered every kind of weapon that was thrust in his hands. 

For years he forgot about himself. He was not Tybalt, who loved poetry and history and the quiet of a garden or a library. He was the Prince of Cats, expert in swords and fighting, leader of the Capulets’ guards, guardian of the Capulet’s heir, punchbag for Lord and Lady Capulet’s anger, hatred and ambitions.

Up until the day his sword was met with resistance, his parries countered with professionalism and panache, a flood of puns and jests answering his icy insults. Suddenly he was Tybalt again, Tybalt who wanted peace and tranquility, who covertly used every skill in his arsenal to keep the body count down to zero, who remembered every book of strategy he ever read to make sure that the futile, senseless civil war did not boil over into an unmitigated disaster. Finally he could put those books of poetry to good use, making Mercutio laugh or splutter with shock or blush in adoration and embarrassment with a line, a verse, a sonnet. Finally he could put himself first - though it took him a long time to understand that - and let himself be vulnerable and weak in front of another. Finally he could laugh and love.

They never saw behind Mercutio’s sunny exterior or Tybalt’s icy composure, because they did not want to see the truth of who they were. For who they really were and what they really lived, belonged only to each other, to the death of night and promises exchanged in the dark. Mercutio was Tybalt’s and Tybalt was Mercutio’s. But myths and legends do not care about the truth, and so in Hades the secret lovers of Verona dance for the rest of eternity, away from those who would not let them be in life.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @rapha-writes
> 
> I have a lot of feelings about Tybalt and Mercutio and this is just the beginning of all I have to say about them.


End file.
